Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/willowick-golf-course/)
Council members at the beginning of the meeting unanimously agreed to drop discussion on the deal for now, hours after Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mary Strobel ruled the Council could vote to approve the agreement but couldn’t finalize it before the end of the year.
The ruling possibly ties Garden Grove’s hands on the golf course, with city officials now prohibited from finalizing any development agreement for the golf course likely until after an expansion of the Surplus Land Act — which goes further in restricting the ways cities can’t find exemptions to the law and circumvent it — takes effect next year.
At their next meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 17, Garden Grove council members will decide whether to lease the 100-acre Willowick Golf Course to hotel development company McWhinney over the next five decades, with currently no information from city staff on exactly how much in dollars the developer would be paying annually for the property.
Garden Grove city officials today will decide whether one of the last remaining open green spaces in a working-class area will be handed to a for-profit developer for decades, despite an ongoing local court battle over whether city officials actually have the legal authority to do so.
Residents of both the Santa Anita neighborhood and Park Santiago neighborhood agree the Council has ignored their opposition to development near their homes — but residents of Santa Anita, a lower-income and predominantly Latino area, say they weren’t listened to as much as residents of Park Santiago, which has more white and higher-income residents.
Garden Grove city officials have put on hold selling off the Willowick Golf Course – owned by Garden Grove and located in Santa Ana – to a for-profit developer and will instead abide by the state Surplus Land Act, which means they’ll look at affordable housing options for the site first.
Development is on the horizon for some of the last remaining open space between Santa Ana and Garden Grove, and resident complaints are mounting about City of Santa Ana efforts to shut out the public while exclusively considering private companies’ bids to build on the area.
Marlha Sanchez, longtime resident of Santa Ana, writes that city officials are ignoring residents need for more parkland by supporting the sale of a public golf course in favor of special interests.
Flor Barajas, Deputy Director at OCCORD, argues that Willowick Golf Course, currently zoned as Open Space, could be developed as a regional park adjourning Santa Ana and Garden Grove. Barajas writes that public lands should not be sold to developers but instead elected officials should protect this asset for future generations.
The city councils’ action struck down hopes for a park between two park-poor cities and stirred opponents’ fears developers will turn the property into an urban hotspot and price working-class families and Latinos out of the surrounding neighborhoods.